Thinking of doing a Transatlantic

[John&LaLa]

I think we need you two on our transatlantic trivia team.:)

 

I contribute to history and geography, Laura is pop culture and entertainment. Our Oasis partners were a dentist and a chemist. On Indy we had an British couple (highly reccomended for cultural diversity) and an older couple. Did I mention that Laura would have been on your TA, but Brilliance had no GS available once they offered it up as one of the Rhapsody cancellation choices. :(

[Biker19]

Even plane is expensive coming back. I can never figure out why it cheap leaving but cost us more to get back even if we lived in this country.

 

All things being equal, the airfare taxes leaving Europe vs leaving the US are about $100 higher (varies depending on the country) - socialism at work - if you can afford to fly to the US you can afford the extra taxes.

[wheretonow?]

Oasis did progressive trivia on our April voyage. We won :D

Indy did it as well on a 6 day. Won that as well ;)

I think the key is to get a diverse group and don't miss a round.

Celebrity did one that was both trivia, scavenger hunt (think Quest) and physical activities. That was over 15 days, had to mix it up.

 

Too bad you are on the Serenade in 2017 the cruises after us - we are always looking for a good trivia team. :):cool: The best ever was our 15 day Radiance cruise - I'm still in contact with our team from 2008.

[Clarea]

I contribute to history and geography, Laura is pop culture and entertainment. Our Oasis partners were a dentist and a chemist. On Indy we had an British couple (highly reccomended for cultural diversity) and an older couple. Did I mention that Laura would have been on your TA, but Brilliance had no GS available once they offered it up as one of the Rhapsody cancellation choices. :(

Learned that lesson on the Vision TA. We had one Scottish woman and one English woman on our team, and we would not have won without them.

[John&LaLa]

Too bad you are on the Serenade in 2017 the cruises after us - we are always looking for a good trivia team. :):cool: The best ever was our 15 day Radiance cruise - I'm still in contact with our team from 2008.

 

That Serenade cruise is going to be epic. It's for Laura's retirement.

[Pumbaamd]

I don't know. We were in Viking Crown almost every evening. That cruise had the best Dancing with the Stripes.:)

Bob,

We spent a lot of time in the CL as back at that time Diamonds were still allowed in there. Only went up to VC once in a while. We participated in the Mardi Gras activities. Our surprise visit to the Canary Islands was fun. When ever HD Robert Taggart is on board, you'll have a great cruise!

Rick

[gmadvm]

we've done the Jewel England to Boston fall transatlantic twice and loved it. We would do it again but it books out so quickly and the price is much higher nowadays. I think it was 3 or 4 days crossing the atlantic and then 2 days going from newfoundland to boston at the end. Jewel is the same class as Brilliance. We enjoyed the downtime in the solarium, but we don't need all the bells and whistles of a large ship to entertain us. different strokes for different folks.

[pspercy]

Just my 2 cents worth, but I've been on Brilliance in the Med and have done an E bound TA on Liberty OTS and there isn't any way I would want to have that many days at sea on Brilliance - just not enough to do for me. It would have to be on a Voyager class or larger, unless you're really into just chilling out for many days in a row.

 

Tend to agree about a larger ship, however we did FLL to Copenhagen on Vision - in an Inside ! It was one of our best ever trips:D

 

For one way fares, ChoiceAir is hard to beat. There are other sites but some have bad reputations and poor service.

Edited February 5, 2016 by pspercy

[impatientlywaiting]

We were on the Legend for the TA in 2014 in March/April. I expected rough weather and we had smooth sailing all the way until we got to the English Channel. The sea days are wonderful but there are plenty of things to keep you busy if you wish. I'd jump at the chance to do another TA in either the spring or the fall.

[jules815]

Be sure to look at Royal's Air2Sea: http://www.choiceair.com.

 

Absolutely!! We couldn't believe the difference using Choice Air. Definitely the way to go.

[brillohead]

I just love the sea days. Can't get enough of them. Reading my Kindle on the promenade deck and falling asleep with my mouth agape. And there's the tutti salads for lunch in the MDR.

 

Get out of my head!!! :p

 

This is my ideal sea day as well... Tutti Salad for breakfast (I close down the nightclub every night, then sleep in a bit), then Kindle / nap / Kindle / nap / Kindle / nap until it's time for dinner!

[davmsi]

We've done 2 North Atlantic TA cruises on the Jewel and Brilliance. We loved them both even though my DW much prefers the larger ships. The North Atlantic routes have more ports and we really enjoyed exploring all the places we visited.

 

A couple of things to consider: You will most likely have a few days with rough seas. Hey, it's the North Atlantic. That being said, you might have to skip some ports due to weather. It happens. Hey, it's the North Atlantic.

 

On one of our cruises we skip two ports in a row and ended up with seven sea days in a row. We didn't mind at all but some people were getting a bit cranky.

 

Bottom line, your on a cruise IMO not much better than that.

[QueenofKrakatoa]

My husband and I would give you all a run for your money on trivia. 😜

[John&LaLa]

My husband and I would give you all a run for your money on trivia. 😜

 

That's what makes it fun

[Seamingo]

You are getting many differing opinions! We love the smaller ships because they have Centrums for dancing early in the evenings. We have been on eastbound TAs but this Brilliance TA will be our first westbound. There is a forum for it that you can review. Since you don't have time for the preceding Med cruise, you might want to go a few days early and enjoy some local tours. The ships have many more activities on at-sea days during the TAs than they do on shorter cruises. I was on the Brilliance two weeks ago, and she is beautiful and well run.

[QueenofKrakatoa]

Yeah we would plan on coming into Barcelona 2 days early. Before the Alaska cruise last year we did a cruise on the Serenade, and we both really liked it. I personally like smaller ships, but we like the Oasis too. We're still talking it over but it's between this TA and cruising the Harmony.

[QueenofKrakatoa]

That's what makes it fun

 

We both really love trivia. We had a really good team on our cruise before last.

[mygo1999]

All things being equal, the airfare taxes leaving Europe vs leaving the US are about $100 higher (varies depending on the country) - socialism at work - if you can afford to fly to the US you can afford the extra taxes.

The UK has the highest airport departure tax in Europe and we have a conservative government. It is worked out on how far it is to the capitol city of the country you are flying to, which can cause some anomalies. However I have noticed the same thing here, if you are looking for a flight to anywhere you will find the flight out is cheaper than the flight back. I think something to do with airlines particularly budget airline then advertising flights ...ie... £20 to Paris etc. So you can get there cheap but they sting you on the way back.

 

Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk

[roysmith99]

We both really love trivia. We had a really good team on our cruise before last.

 

You will love a Transatlantic cruise, slow sea days with plenty of time to relax and take part in the trivia and other things that might interest you. Our first, and only so far (but more to come) was Florida to Copenhagen in 2014 - a wonderful cruise with some rough weather, but overall a great experience.

 

And to add to the fun we won the ten-day progressive trivia.

 

Have fun.

[TSC]

we were hesitant to try a TA because we worried there wouldn't be enough to do, but we ended up loving the experience. We did London to Fort Lauderdale in November. A few stops along the way and then 6 sea days. This was a couple of years ago on the Navigator of the Sea. Absolutely heaven. We spent quite a bit of time playing trivia too - (we also won the progressive trivia thanks in large part to my British team mates!) I don't think I'd try a really small ship because we did like that there were several options every day. We had slightly rough weather on the way to France, but after that we had incredibly smooth sailing on the southern route.